In Other Words, I Love You

“What are you doing when you get back Sarge?” the words came from James Baker, a kid from Harlem who rested on his pack staring up at the stars. An old record player sang in the dark as they spoke, it played the same song through the night, the only record from his request that had reached the camp. 

“I’ll probably take a hot shower first, in my own bathroom. And then there’s this bakery in my neighbourhood, in a train station, they make the damn best cwassants.” He said the words slow as if he were tasting the words in his mouth. “And then I have a girl back home waiting for me. Maybe I’ll take her dancing” he replied. Sergeant Rodriguez was a quiet man, the only one who could get his tongue loose was the kid. He was the one that started calling him Rocco, and the name stuck. 

“Damn Sarge, those must be some real good croissants back home if you’re going to get those cwassants, before you see your girl”, the squad laughed and looked at the Sarge who was getting up to do his routine check.

The camp was surrounded by tall barbed wire fences. Sergeant Rodriguez checked the perimeter three or four times before he came back to sleep, a habit he developed after being stationed here for the past month. When he got to the main gate, he noticed a small puppy staring at the camp whimpering. As he walked out with his outstretched hand, the dog scurried away into the small jungle. He took a step following the puppy. 

Rocco saw a flash of light, a high-pitched drone seeped through his ear and into his skull. His eyes were wide and bewildered as he watched LeRoy scramble through his med-pack with tears floating in his eyes. He couldn’t feel his leg. He crunched his head up to see what had happened, but a shock of pain erupted in his head as he collapsed back. He felt a syringe in his arm. His eyes dazed. Black.

The next month happened in a sequence of flashes, if someone asked him what had happened, he would only be able to tell them those flashes. The first flash was the ground dropping below him as a helicopter propelled him away from Vietnam. The next flash was the white walls of a hospital with other soldiers sitting in their white beds with eyes looking far and the occasional screaming down the hall. The next flash happened six years later sitting in his one-bedroom apartment with his prosthetic leg laying in his lap.

Rocco had left the war a year before it ended in 1974, he walked into a Veteran Centre in the summer of 1980, six years later, in a random moment of clarity. His prosthetic leg clinked on the floor as he limped to the service desk. He took a seat as the receptionist swivelled away from the window putting together some papers, and he could feel the woman’s face scrunching into disgust as he sat there waiting. Outside the cold window screen were pamphlets hanging on the wall. Jolly old men smiling with a nurse walking down the street as the sun gleamed in the sky and fluffy clouds danced in the sky. Birch Tree Acres, We Work to Make You Smile. Bull. His eyes turned to the other wall. Service Animals. Before the woman could swivel back to the window Rocco was out the door, pamphlet scrunched in his hand.

He left the service dog pamphlet on the nightstand, under his lamp. He sat in his bed, his head rolling with pain, his knee throbbing. He picked up the pamphlet and read through it. He thought of the puppy, with its ear ripped, sitting outside the fence. The throbbing in his knee got stronger, he felt for a box under his bed and opened it, a small syringe sat inside. He looked at the pamphlet again, placed the box back under his bed and lay in his bed awake. Sleep did not come that night, but an idea did.

The next morning, he got on the 343 bus and sat down waving off people that offered him their seat. The bus passed the Service Dog Centre and took him down to Christopher Avenue where he got off and hobbled along with his cane in hand. He was not an old man, but his bones felt it. A small sign with two paws on it, Furry Paws Adoption Home, he walked up to the double doors and walked in. The young man at reception walked him to the back, rows of dogs ran to the front of their fences and started barking. Rocco gripped his cane, his knuckles turning white, his head swimming.  

“Sir, you okay?”, the young bright-eyed man that brought him in held out his hand and held his shoulder. Rocco flinched at the feeling and stared at the man before calming down. 

“Yeah yeah, I’m alright--” His eyes moved to one of the fences. Inside, a pale brown dog with ears like a German Shepherd sat in the back corner of the grey wall with her head in her paws. He let go of the wall and started towards the dog. She glimpsed up at him with shy beady eyes.

“We rescued her about a week ago, she was tied up to a pole in an abandoned lot, hasn’t eaten a thing since she got here. She just kind of sits there. She’s an old dog, trained pretty well but you might need-” The man started to turn away from the dog looking at the other fences with dogs still barking.

“I’ll take her.” The young man turned back to see the two looking at each other.

When they got back to the apartment she ran to a corner and sat there, she looked around with her big beady eyes as Rocco took out a plate and poured some dog food on to it. They had made a stop on the way home where he tied her up outside before going in. She was scared when he got back with her tail between her legs, squealing barks at people leaving the store. He placed the dish in front of her and waited, she did not eat. He went back and sat down in his couch watching her through the corner of his eyes. She took small nibs at the food. The plate was never empty, and so the routine of throwing out food and replacing it with new started.

He was hesitant to take her out on walks, but he did anyways for a couple of minutes a day. Her appetite began after they started walking and she ate more and more as time went on. Nibs turned into bites and he threw out less and less food each day. As if possessed one night, she walked over to him after eating and sat at his feet.

He reached over and patted her head.

They started taking longer walks despite the deep ache in his knee. She walked him around the block as if she had lived in it longer than he had, as if she knew where she was going. He had been here for six years, moving here after he couldn’t afford his old place two blocks down. He worked up a sweat, but he let his old dog walk him through the neighbourhood.

Fifteen minutes later he was passing by Rosewood Station. He hadn’t realized it, but she had brought him back to his old neighbourhood. He remembered his conversation with Baker and thought - I hope they still got those cwassants.  

“Stay”, her leash was dangling on a nearby bench, he didn’t know why he bothered to even tell her to stay, his heart told him she would be there when he got back. His memory of the place resurfaced as he walked in. Across from him was M&P Bakery. He felt his mouth widen into a grin as he saw the name, the best damn cwassants I’ve ever had and only six years late.

He walked back the dog with croissants in a white paper back and a hot dog in the other. He bit into the croissant and he sat back and closed his eyes as he remembered the taste of it. The dog was eating the hotdog when a woman approached them and crouched down in front of the dog.

“She’s beautiful, whats her name?”, Rocco looked down at her and for the first time in five weeks he realized he hadn’t named her.

***

Rocco hadn’t unpacked his boxes since he moved to his new apartment, with the same logic he had for not naming the poor dog. You can do it later. The cardboard boxes sat in obscure places, scattered around his apartment collecting dust.

He started to unpack his boxes, old comic books from his childhood and novels. Lots of novels. The last box he unpacked was an old record player, a hefty old thing from the early seventies, it was his fathers. He placed it on a small table and opened it up, dust floating from the surface being caught in the orange light of the evening. He walked over to the pile of records he had wiped off and put on his sofa and picked up the first one on the stack, also one of his favourites. The record player screeched a little but played the music smooth, he took a dancing step towards the sofa and sat down as he listened to the music tapping his forefinger into the arms of the sofa. She walked over to his couch and rested her head on his lap. He decided to name her Moon, after one of his favourite songs.

Nights were always tough. Rocco could almost reach out and touch Vietnam, feel the way the humid air felt on his skin. The flash was always brighter when he closed his eyes, the bright bang and LeRoy’s face. Nights were hard for both; Moon would come to the foot of his bed scared. They would always sit in front of the TV together if they could not sleep, Rocco dozing off in his couch and Moon sleeping with her head on his soft slipper.

The walks had been getting longer and it seemed that Moon always followed a path, across the train station and further into his old neighbourhood. She walked down through patios filled with people eating and without fail she would stand in front of a small run-down house before walking down further into the neighbourhood and back to the apartment. 

After Moon took her daily stop at the old house, she walked down the street with all the patios. Rocco heard his name as he walked through the street following the wagging tail and panting of Moon. He kept his head turned away from the calling and continued walking down the street.

“Jacob? Jacob!”, she walked over to him with tears in her eyes. He looked down at her feet as she started talking fast about how long it had been and how she tried reaching out on several occasions and oh how she had missed him. Before he had a chance to object, they were meeting at Richards Park, for a coffee. When he walked away his heart was pounding in his chest, faster and faster until he could not tell the difference between each thud. 

Jacob Rocco and Moon Rocco waited in the park, sitting on a bench that looked at a water fountain, three angels pouring water from large vases.

Mia Obando. He had seen her at a bar dancing with her friends, her beautiful hair bouncing on the back of her short floral dress. He had mustered up the courage from deep within him to talk to her. They met that night and saw each other almost every day after. He thought he would marry her some day, and the way she cried holding his hand when he had been drafted, he had a feeling she thought the same. 

She arrived five minutes later with two coffee cups in her hand, he looked up at her and then dropped his gaze to his feet as he stroked Moons head. She scrambled through her purse and took out a small bag of bacon flavoured dog treats. She put one in her palm and let Moon take her time and take it from her. Moon had a new friend.

Mia did most of the talking that afternoon, trying to detective work her way through the last six years. She talked about his family and sending letters to his old address. She told him how she had missed him. When she said this, he glanced over at her hand that was gripping the coffee cup. A wave of relief washed over him. Her fingers were empty. He listened to her speak and only gave one- or two-word replies. He was never much of a talker and she was one of the only people to understand that. That was why he loved her still.

When Mia got up to leave, Moon walked over and sat down in front of her. The brown dog looked over at Rocco, ears attentive and pointing at him as she cocked her head to an angle as if she were imploring him to ask the nice woman who gave her treats to come back to their apartment. So, he did.

“Will you come over for some tea?”, he asked. She crossed her hands behind her back as she hid the cup of coffee she had been drinking and smiled.

“I thought you’d never ask.” They walked back to Rocco’s apartment, Mia holding his hand and the leash in his other.

They walked into the living room.

“Sorry about the mess, I don’t get many visitors”, he said. She waved her hands as if to say no problem but stopped midway as she walked over to the giant record player that sat on the small table at the end of the room.

“You still got this old thing?”, she asked with a spark of nostalgia in her voice, her eyes glistening in the light of the sunset outside. She placed the needle down and the music began to pour through the house bouncing off the walls. She turned around and saw the man she had known sitting on the sofa tapping his finger on the sofa, his dog sitting by his feet. She walked over to him and put her hand out. Rocco hesitated but took her hand as Moon moved away from the sofa to let Rocco out and then lay down on her belly. They swayed from side to side, Moon watching them with interest.

Moon closed her eyes and fell into a half sleep as she heard the music, it sounded familiar to her. She had heard it at the place where the trees were tall, and the air was humid. She could see the man who had helped her when her head was stuck in the barbed wire and she tore her ear. She saw the bright flash behind her after getting lost in the jungle. She saw the man that picked her up when she was lost and walked her back to his camp. She saw the run-down apartment when she got to this place and the man that had saved her, yelling in the night as he slept. She saw him walk her over to the abandoned lot and tied her to the post. She saw the woman that brought her to the place with all the other frightened dogs. Then she saw the man who walked in with his stick and his eyes glossy and sad, the same man she had seen where the trees were tall, and the air was humid before the big flash. She opened her eyes and saw the same man now happy with the bacon lady. 

He looked at Moon again and saw her beady black eyes, her eyes locked onto his and he stood swaying with Mia as the music echoed through his loft. 

In Other Words, I Love You.